Wednesday, December 16, 1998

The American multinational Monsanto has beenall over the newspapersrecently for the wrong reasons.It has been conducting trials ofa genetically altered cotton variety , that is a transgenic variety, called Bollgard. This does not contain the terminator gene as Monsanto says and as thegovernment has confirmed.However ignorant and misguided farmers in Karnataka have been destroying crops in the field thinking that theBollgard cotton variety contained the terminator gene. The action has spilled over into Andhra without anyone bothering to verify the facts.

The misguided action to “ uproot the terminator gene” has allowed Monsanto to produce clarifications and offer assurances to the public and the government that it is not using the terminator gene.Monsanto has succeeded in portrayingitself as the wronged party attacked by a bunch ofgoondas for something it has not done andhas even got a High Court injunction for protection of its assets and property.

Unfortunately , the result of this ill-informed sensationalism has been the obfuscation of the real issue which isthe actual nature of transgenic tests being conducted by Monsanto and their violations of biosafety protocols. In order to protect the farmers from being exploited or misused as guinea pigs it is important to have clarity about what is what so that action is taken against Monsanto for its biosafety violationsand not some non-existent terminator gene.

The questions of concern are: *Have the local farmers been informed about what is being tested and what the dangers of such tests are ?

*Has the farming community in the test locations consented to trials in their neighborhood ?

*Have they been taken into confidence about the nature of these tests and the kind of safety precautions that are needed for such tests?

*Are these safety precautions being put in place ?

*On the testing proper,is there collaboration with Indian scientists and Indian monitoring agencies in the field ? If not, why not .

*Most importantly, whyis Monsanto conducting its trials on genetically altered cotton in India? Why is it not doing it in the USA , its home country,which has huge tracts offallow agricultural land and where this transgenic cotton variety has been developed.

It would appear thatin order to escape critical scrutiny and expensive field trials in the US, Monsanto is doing its testing in India. It is taking unfair advantage of the general ignorance in rural areas about the damage that can be caused to farmers’ crops if such tests are not conducted properly. Monsanto can get away with shoddy testing here, ignoring safety regulations that it can not do in its home country.

Field testing for the new breed of genetically alteredcrops must be done very carefully following a strictbiosafetyregime of checks, physical containment and large land tracts isolating the experimental plots from farmers fields.In addition to this, data must be collected from the field constantly to see whether the foreign gene has escaped from the experimental plots to neighboring fields. Is all this being done by Monsanto ? Is it being monitored by Indian agencies ?

Transgenic crops in the field can be dangerous if the foreign gene they contain is carried to other crops or plants throughcross pollination. Several reputed laboratories have shown that pollen transfer can occur over very large distances and the foreign gene can be detected in related species at these distances. Therefore the danger is that genes from transgenic varieties can land up where they are not desired and thus cause harm. In any case, farmers who do not wish to grow the transgenic crop must not be forced to deal with gene pollution just because they are neighbours of those who have put transgenics in the field.

In India awareness about the new developments in genetics and biotechnology is very poor . Never mind the public, what is shocking is the utter ignorance of the scientists and scientific institutions working on the new areas in genetics and biotechnology. It may be recalled that just a few months ago , the experimental plots with standing crops of a transgenic variety had to destroyed in the field in Delhi since safety regulations were not being complied with. This was incidentally at a reputed national facility. Given this record, is it really sensible to allow field tests by a foreign multinational in farmers fields?

What is urgently needed isto increase awareness in rural areas about these new developments in genetics and agriculture. Gene Campaign has thereforelauncheda public campaign to clarify the real issues and explain to people what transgenics are and the dangers ofcareless transgenic testing in the field. The first round ofpublic meetings andgroup discussions are being conductedin Uttar Pradesh,Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. The next round is planned for Bihar and the North -Eastern states.

Monsanto’s lack of transparency about its transgenic cottontrials in Indiaand its attempt to use India as a third world testing ground are to be condemned. The goals of this multinational company are commercial and monopolistic agriculture andto make as much money as possible . Our goals are food and nutritional security , maintaining genetic diversity and ensuring the livelihood of small and marginal farmers.The collision course with Monsanto is therefore already laid out and it is clear thatwhat is good for Monsanto, is not good for us. There is no place for Monsanto in Indian agriculture . They must be asked to go, but for the right reasons.

About Me

Dr. Suman Sahai, who has had a distinguished scientific career in the field of genetics, is a recipient of the Padma Shri,the Borlaug Award, Outstanding Woman Achiever awards, the BirbalSahni Gold Medal and the Order of the Golden Ark .
Dr. Sahai is founder Chairperson of the Gene Campaign which is a leading research and advocacy organization, working on issues relating to food, nutrition and livelihoods. She has published extensively on science and policy issues and is a member of several national policy forums on scientific research and education, biodiversity and environment, biotechnology and bioethics as well as intellectual property rights.
Dr Sahai chaired India’s Planning Commission Task Force on ‘Agro biodiversity and Genetically Engineered Organisms’, for the XIth Plan. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the National Biodiversity Board , the Expert Committee on Biotechnology Policy and the Bioethics Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research.She has served on the Research Advisory Committees of national scientific institutions.
Dr Sahai can be reached at www.genecampaign.org and mail@genecampaign.org